media on crime

• portrayal of people in fictional crime

  -criminals: the master criminal; the incompetent; the psychopath & the planner

  
  

  -victims: helpless female; vigilante male & ethnic minority

  
  

  -police: super intelligent; bumbling idiot & always the bad guy
• media distortion - fictional crime

  -Madel - over-representation of crime: crime is heavily seen in fictional media. From 1945-1985; 10 billion units of media involving crime was sold. Consumption of fictional crime distorts reality

  
  

  -Surrets - law of opposites: in fictional media, people are portrayed opposite to how they actually are in society. Crimes involved in fictional media is always violent, property crime is under-represented. Offenders = always male with no moral grey area. In fictional media, the police always win - this does not happen in real life
• portrayal of people in factual crime

  -criminals: underclass; ethnic minorities; young & men

  
  

  -victims: missing white women syndrome - white women are focused on more in the media that other victims - example: Sabrina Nessa not reported on heavily, a white girl went missing around the same time and this was heavily reported on

  
  

  -police: corrupt; brutal; racist & incompetent
• factual crime - media distortion

  -Kidd-Hewitt & Osborne: "crime is a spectacle", the media dramatises events & picks to report on engaging offences/what the public will find interesting

  
  

  -Postman: "infortainment" - media involves information & entertainment when reporting on crimes, offences are sensationalised

  
  

  -Felson: "dramatic fallacy" - media dramatises & romanticises crime e.g., murderers are glorified as clever & calculated
• media distortion - news value

  -process of deciding what should be on the news and what should not, there are different factors considered when doing this:

  -immediacy of the story

  -dramatisation

  -personalisation

  -high status offender/victim

  -simplification

  -unexpected

  -clear victim

  -violence

  
  

  -this leads to the underrepresentation of property crime; the over-exaggeration of violence, drugs etc; over-exaggerates police success; exaggerates the risk of victimisation and isolated incidents
• media distortion - news value - AO2

  -Lucy Letby: unexpectedness; personalisation; violence

  -father murdered teen daughter whilst play-fighting: violence; unexpectedness; clear victim; violence

  -teenager murdered on London bus by other teens: immediacy of the story; personalisation; unexpected; clear victim; violence
• the media causing crime - the hypodermic syringe model

  -'magic bullet theory'

  -audiences are passive & the media brainwashes them, the press has control over this & persuades audiences

  -audiences accept what they are told, passively

  -media just goes straight into peoples heads

  -correlation between violence portrayed in media & violence happening in real life, are socialised to believe that this behaviour is acceptable

  -supported by Bandura
• the media causing crime - how this happens & examples

  -imitation

  -arousal

  -desensitisation

  -school of crime

  -targeting

  -deprivation

  -glamorisation

  
  

  examples:

  -desensitisation: knife crime & drug offences & murders e.g., Dhamer

  -imitation: school shootings & vandalism

  -glamorisation: murderer Gypsy Rose Blanchard

  -arousal: dark web
• the hypodermic syringe model - AO3

  -deterministic - fails to ignore agency people have

  -feminist sociologist: Dines - male use of pornography gives an unrealistic expectation of male-female relationships

  -ignores how the media can send positive messages

  -ignores how most people who see violent media do not commit violent acts in real life (Schramm 1961)

  -Ramos: people can become more sympathetic/empathetic when they see violent media

  -modern audiences are not passive
• the media encouraging crime

  -Lea & Young: relative deprivation - the media portrays different things as normal, increases the sense of relative deprivation for the poor & marginalised. The media focuses on consumerism & materialism.

  
  

  -Haywood & Young: cultural criminology - crime is consumed, it has been turned into a commodity. Create crime to sell crime. e.g., 24 hours in police custody/people filming fights Blurs the image & reality of crime - this difference is no longer distinct. Media representation & crime control creates crime itself e.g., filming & faking gang assaults. Live in a media obsessed society, most media relates to crime. People commit crime for it to be in media.

  
  

  -Fenwick & Hayward: the use of crime to sell products. Crime is marketed to young people in the media as cool & fashionable - crime is romanticised in this way e.g., car ads featuring joy riding, riots & the fashion industry 'heroin chic'.
• Fenwick & Hayward - AO2

  -Puma was said to have glamourised adolescent drug dealing at an event

  -people invited to the event were given shoes with a fake £50, a burner phone and co-ordinates to a trap house, where a party happened. Used terminology related to drug dealing
• the media causing/encouraging crime - relating to theories

  -labelling theory: folk devils are identified in the media which can create a moral panic. People also may stereotype & label others based on what they see in the media leading to self-fulfilling prophecies. The media also labels acts as criminal. All of this creates a deviancy amplification spiral.

  
  

  -subcultural theory: Offences shown in the media e.g., drugs typically relate to the criminal subculture. Black MTV rappers (Sewell) are role models for young people who lack father figures so then commit crime as they look up to them.

  
  

  -marxism: the proletariat commit crime as the media is very consumerist & materialist. They then commit crime to have these consumerist items that they cannot afford. Zaretsky: unit of consumption.

  
  

  -edgework: the media romanticises crime & people then commit crime for the thrill.
• agenda setting


  The media place importance on topics that the public then place on their agenda
• the media causing a fear of crime

  -The media creates a moral panic against crime, which makes people scared e.g., fuel shortages/knife crime. They word their reports in certain ways, for example towards race e.g., islamic terrorism.

  -The media is more likely to make elderly people fear crime & women & parents as elderly = more likely to watch the news; women = more likely to have sexual assault; parents = fear for their children.

  -The media causes the fear of being a victim; people then spend more time at home; then consume more media which generates more fear.
• Schiesinger & Tumbler (1992)

  -there is an over-representation of certain crime types

  -found a correlation between tabloid readers & habitual media users and fear of going out at night & becoming a victim of crime
• Miller & Reilly (1994)

  -moral panics are ideological control

  -moral panics reinforce negative stereotypes against certain groups of people which prevents revolutionary actions as attitudes towards certain groups are influenced by the media

  -relates to Hall & his black mugging research
• AO3 - media & moral panics

  McRobbie & Thornton: this concept is outdated

  -frequency: more moral panics, they are normal to see in the media

  -context: are now more belief systems & values in society so people can identify when moral panics and scapegoating are happening and challenge this, do not blindly accept what they are told

  -reflexivity: the concept is well known so people do not try to create a moral panic for their own benefit

  -difficulty: it is hard to start a moral panic now, there is less certainty about what is unambiguous

  -rebound
• case study - hip hop: counter-culture & commodification (cultural criminology)

  -hip hop used to contain lyrics about life as ethnic minorities due to their marginalisation

  -started to have different meanings & hip hop started to have derogatory lyrics & lyrics about drugs

  -the artists became flashy & rich & cared more about this, their audiences started to care about this

  -this causes relative deprivation for the audiences which can then influence them to commit crime to be like their role models

  -in the long term, may not have enough money as they spend it on materialistic items their role model has so then may have to turn to more criminality

  -blurs the image between media & crime through what they lyrics discuss

  -further creates subcultures
• case study: Leah Betts - moral panic

  -took ecstasy on 18th birthday and died

  -this was unexpected & had personalisation (news value)

  -she was not perceived as deviant but took drugs which blurs the line when causing a moral panic

  -was given the pill as a birthday present, it was pure but she had too much water & died although people first thought it was laced

  -shows missing white women syndrome as this case was highly present in the media